My wifeâ€™s been buying these half-gallon glass containers of all-natural, fat-free milk. They cost about the same as regular store milk, except you have to leave a $3 deposit in case the bottle gets lost, broken or, I donâ€™t know, stolen by vengeful cows. Bring it back and you get your $3 back, or you can put it toward the deposit on the next bottle.

These vessels have a plastic cap on them, from which you peel away a plastic seal ring. You then lose a fingernail trying to pry the top off the bottle.

Anyway, the idea is that youâ€™re buying from a local farmer, and the returned glass bottle can be cleaned and reused, saving the environment just a bit.

All good, believe me.

But remember the days when you could grab the waxy paper carton from the fridge, check the â€śsell byâ€ť date stamped on there and be fairly confident that what you were about to pour past your nose into your mouth was fresh because it said it was? Call me nostalgic.

I opened up one of the glass bottles the other day. It was still nearly full. The sell by date on there was still a good week off.

So was the milk. Off, I mean. It had lumps of goo in it. Spooked, I spit it into the sink.

â€śWell, you have to shake it,â€ť Mary said, oblivious to the inherent problem there.

â€śShake milk? Shake store-bought milk? Why the hell are we making all this progress on perfecting the art of milk handling just to do it the old way?â€ť I asked thoughtfully. â€śThe old way is why the new way exists!â€ť

Damn Luddite Communists!

(At least it hadnâ€™t been sour this time. One in a row. Great.)

My point is that the Colorado Rockies stink, if I hadnâ€™t made that abundantly clear already. Pull the cap back on tonightâ€™s game and it might be all â€śTu-LO!â€ť and seven-run offensive outbursts and crisp defense and shutdown relief pitching. Just as often, though, P-U! You just never know. Six straight in the sour column.

Iâ€™ve shut up at home about the milk, just skipping the morning coffee instead of revisiting the 1800s every day at sunrise. Iâ€™ll leave Mary to churn the butter.

And this is the first Rockies post Iâ€™ve done this season, never quite buying into the big, bruising, maturing unit they were making themselves out to be but not wanting to be a spoil sport. Then came last night. The inexplicable wildness of late by pitcher Jordan Lyles (a horse up to now) blossoming into a wild pitch and a broken hand while covering home put an awful, sour taste in my mouth. The 12 runs served up by the bullpen made me want to spit in the sink. The defense? OK, that I can still swallow. (Wait a minute, between Nolan Arenadoâ€™s and Carlos Gonzalezâ€™s busted-up fingers and Lylesâ€™ fragile hand, maybe we do have a milk-drinking problem here.)

So this is what two-games- under-.500-and-free-falling feels like. Now I remember.

They started so fresh and new. A different Rockies squad! And our best guys werenâ€™t even fully healthy yet!

Thatâ€™s what it said on the bottle from Rockies Dairy. Now, somethingâ€™s off.

The glass is half … water. The other half is moo goo.

The teamâ€™s sell by date looks to be a ways away. But maybe we ought to shake things up, just to be sure.

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